Nicki Minaj Natural look stems from confidence

NEW YORK — Nicki Minaj, who has recently dropped her colorful and oddball style for a more natural and sophisticated look, says it’s because she’s more comfortable in her skin.

“I kind of feel now that I look more like my regular old self, like what I look like when I’m at home,” she said in an interview Sept. 9. “I think there’s just a little bit more confidence and so I’m like, ‘It is what it is. I am who I am. I look like what I look like.’ I don’t really have to change much of it anymore.”

Minaj’s new look includes her natural black hair color versus the wild and bright wigs she’s worn that helped establish her name in pop culture. At the recent Fashion Rocks concert in Brooklyn, New York, where the rapper performed, she wore a blazer and skirt that came off like a little black dress.

“I just thought it was really, really sexy, but without being tight,” she said. “I thought it was different for me.”

Onstage, Minaj wore less when performing her rump-shaking hit Anaconda,’ which has peaked at No. 2 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Her other single, Bang Bang, with Ariana Grande and Jessie J, is another massive hit, giving the performer two songs in the current Top 5.

The songs appear on her third album, The Pinkprint, to be released Nov. 24.

“The album is going to be my best body of work,” she said. “It’s diverse, but it’s not trying too hard.”